Twelve
The next day in Psychology, Warren had a hard time sitting forward in his seat. Several times, our teacher would call on him for an answer or his opinion on a question, but he was too busy staring at me as I took notes, that he didn’t know what Mr. Greene was talking about. Which only made me giggle and we both got into some trouble.
Although Warren was the one not paying attention, I received a detention for distracting him. Seriously, Mr. Greene just hated me!
“After school, Fayette.”
“I didn’t even do anything,” I snapped.
He turned his back to me and continued to pick up and put back down the same pile of papers. “Alright, very good,” he continued to say.
When class ended, Fawn and I decided that she would just take the car.
“I’ll drive you home,” Warren offered.
I shook my head. “And make you stay here? No way. Go home.”
He sighed. “Fay, you know I can’t do that.”
I rolled my eyes.
“C’mon. Don’t be like that. You know how this works.”
I couldn’t help cracking a smile. Even though the circumstances weren’t one hundred percent fabulous, didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy his company.
“I’ll take her home. I have to stay after anyway,” Foster said.
Fawn’s head snapped back to gape at him. What the hell?
“Oh, Foster,” I said softly. “That’s really nice of you, but Warren—”
He smiled at me. “Don’t be silly, Fayette. You’re on my way home anyway.”
I stared into his deep purple eyes and they flared as he finished speaking. My fingers started to go numb. “Okay,” I said.
“Fay!” Fawn and Warren exclaimed simultaneously.
My body jumped at their voices. I shook my head against the sudden headache that formed. “Go away. You’re making my head hurt.”
Warren leaned close to me to whisper in my ear. “I’ll be waiting for you outside, Fay. You know our situation and how delicate it is.”
“I’m not some precious flower that needs constant attention,” I snapped.
He reached out to touch my hand, but I jerked it away before he made contact. “I’ll see you soon,” he said harshly as he followed Fawn out of the classroom.
“Can you say ball and freaking chain?” Foster asked. “How come you two are so close all of a sudden. I thought Fawn was hot for him.”
“It’s complicated.” I shrugged and sighed.
He laughed, “it always is.”
Foster was working on his essay that he had received an extension for. I wanted to ask him about being a fairy, but I didn’t want to chance it with Mr. Greene aimlessly walking around the room.
“This seems like a weekly thing,” I joked.
“What do you mean?”
“Me having detention and you doing homework. We did it last week too.”
Foster laughed. “Maybe we should do it more often.”
“You want me to get detention more often?”
“Not exactly.” He paused. He was looking at me again with a very tense expression that made me self conscious. “Do you want to do something after this? Like we could hang out or something.”
I didn’t want to say yes, but for some reason, I couldn’t say no. “Sure.”
I didn’t want to get out of the car. He had driven for almost an hour out of town, not stopping or listening to me as I told him that I wanted to go home. He continuously ignored me or told me to shut up. I grew tense and scared as he continued to drive, on and on. He wouldn’t tell me why we had stopped in the middle of the road or when I’d be home. I silently wished I had listened to Warren.
Foster got out of the car and signaled me to follow, but I hesitated. He shook his head, clearly running out of patience. He walked into the woods, still visible from the road. His arms began to move, as if he was talking to someone, explaining something but I didn’t see anyone else besides him.
His movements ended, he turned, and stalked towards the car.
He opened my door. “There’s been a change in plans.” He reached in and grabbed my arm, but I pulled away from him. The worried and hateful feelings I had for him the day he moved to town came flooding back to me and falsely gave me strength.
He is my enemy.
All patience fell from his face and an angry snarl escaped his lips. “Let’s go!” He put one hand around my waist and his other hand grabbed a fist full of my hair and he pulled me out of the car.
I hit the ground hard. His hand slipped from my hair and my head smashed against the soggy wet grass. I tried to get on my hands and knees, but he was already there, pulling me up by the hair.
I reached up, trying to scratch his hands to get him off me, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Foster!” I tried to fight him off me, but he dragged me into the woods. “No!” I wished and prayed that he wasn’t going to try to kill me.
He dragged me a few more feet then let me go. I quickly scrambled to my feet and started to move away from him.
All he did was smile and something grabbed my arms. I tried to wring myself free, but whoever it was had an iron tight grip. “What’s going on?” I asked, trying to hold back my tears.
Foster turned towards me. “Fay, sweet Fay. So naïve to think that you could just come into our world and play Pretty Pretty Princess!” He turned away from me again and started pacing. “I can’t let that happen. You understand, don’t you? You don’t even have powers! You’re not even a fairy. How could I let you be the queen of so many who are counting on their queen for redemption?”
“Foster! Please! Don’t do this.” My eyes began to water as I pull against the hands on my arms.
He didn’t listen to me. He walked right up to me and brought his fist back as if he was going to punch me. Then, only darkness followed.
*
I awoke to the constant jingling of chains being rattled together. I tried to open my eyes, but all I saw was darkness. Suddenly reacting, I tried to move, but everything either hurt or caused the chains to make more noise.
I was chained in the kneeling position in some dark room. “Shit,” I half muttered, half whined.
Panic ran through me as time went by. But how much time, I did not know. There were no lights, no odors, and no sounds that could help identify where I was. I tried to wiggle my hands out of the thick metal cuffs, but they wouldn’t budge and only worsened the pain in my arms.
Eventually, I gave up and my body fell limp against the chains.
I must have fallen asleep because I was stirred when a door opened, letting in a horrifying amount of light. I blinked against the bright white color.
A shadow appeared. I recognized the silhouette immediately.
“What are you going to do with me, Foster?” My voice was raspy and sounded drunk with exhaustion.
He chuckled. “I just wanted to let you know that our real queen has arrived and we have an audience.”
When he finished speaking, the walls around me dropped with a loud thud that echoed off the trees. After squinting at the sun, I could fully see where I was. And I recognized the scenery from a dream that I had.
I was in a cage on a risen platform above hundreds of fairies chanting and screaming at me as if I was the Elephant Man at the carnival.
A woman walked on the platform with her arms raised. She was the motivational speaker from my dream as well. The spiky haired girl must have been the ‘real queen’ Foster had spoken about.
She turned to me. The girl bent down to be at eye level with me and poked a finger through one of the gaps between the bars. Her skin began to sizzle as if it was hot enough to burn her. She smiled at me as if I were a puppy at the pound, despite her burnt finger. “My name is Summer.”
Her voice was squeakier compared to what I remembered from my dream.
“Fayette,” I muttered.
“Well, Fayette. I know this all may be a bit strange and confusing for you right now. But trust me; we are doing it for your own good.”
“Oh yeah. Caging me against my will is definitely for my own good.”
Summer stood up straight after my comment, all sweetness gone from her face. “You’ll change that attitude of yours sooner or later.”
Summer pivoted on her heel and faced her adoring fans. They cheered for her and began chanting her name. “Summer! Summer! Summer!”
I took my eyes off of Summer and peered at the crowd. I silently hoped that there would be someone amoung the faces that would be willing to help me. It was a false hope.
Why didn’t I just go home with Warren?
Then something hit me like a wrecking ball. Warren was supposed to be meeting me after school. He knows that I’m missing. He’ll come find me. He’ll come racing through the crowd leading a huge army of elemental fairies and set me free. Any minute now.
He never came.
After Summer’s long speech, she said that the following day was the day to take over. She would lead the army of rogues and defeat the kings and queens. Having me as an asset, she was convinced she wouldn’t lose. As far as I could tell, the kings and queens didn’t even care if I lived or died.
Why wasn’t anyone saving me?
I let the tears stream out of my eyes while two very large fairies pushed my cage off the platform and into a little hut inside the woods. The fairies were dark brown and wore a lot of leather padding around their bodies as if they were wearing armor. They stood next to my cage and crossed their arms.
“What, are you my protectors?” I laughed against my tears. Neither fairy moved. “There’s no reason to protect me. No one will come looking for me.” Again, nothing from them. “Could you at least un-cuff me, these are really uncomfortable.”
One of them banged the cage with a leathery fist. “Shut up.”
I gave up on the fairy barbarians and looked around my prison. There were several other cages like mine, but made of different metals. One looked like pure gold. There was a creature in that one.
“Hello?” I tried to call to it but it didn’t stir. “Are you a prisoner, too?” I tried to make my voice gentle.
The wings of the creature moved. They were black and stringy. He lifted his head a fraction to peer at me through the corner of his eye.
“Corrigan,” I whispered. “You’re alive?”
He put his head back down on his arms. They were not chained like mine where. “Why are you in here? I thought you were with them.”
His hands turned into fists against his legs. His actions became a blur as he moved closer to me. He put his hands around the bars and glared at me through the gaps. “You are why I am here. Because I did not kill you like I was told to. You are the cause for this bedlam.”
His expression scared me, it was intense and dark. I tried to back away from him but my chained arms kept me from doing so.
“I’m so sorry, Corrigan. I—I don’t really know what’s going on. You know, I didn’t even know about all this stuff until a week ago. How can these people expect me to choose to be or not to be queen?”
Corrigan shrugged and slumped back in his cage. “Whatever your choice is, you better freaking figure it out soon.”
I turned my head away from him, lost in my own thoughts.
I’d so rather be on the stage signing in front of a huge crowed instead of trapped in a cage next to Corrigan and surrounded by sumo wrestling fairies.
My head snapped up. “That’s it!” I sat up as much as I could in the confined space of my cage. I cleared my throat and began to quietly hum. The only tune I could think of at the time was the theme song to Mission Impossible, but it seemed to be working.
The broad fairies guarding me started turning towards me.
I asked the fairies to let me out. They looked as if they were going to, but hesitated. “We’d love to, your majesty. But the key, the lock, everything about it is made of iron. We could die if we touch it.” That would explain all the leather that they wore.
I nodded, coming up with a plan. An escape plan that was sure to work.
I pictured her singing the Mamma Mia song super loudly. 
